Good News and Bad News for Mitch McConnell After Today's Successful Filibuster of Transportation Bill

      Say this for McConnell: at least for today he was back in control after things have gotten away from him a little the last few weeks with a filibuster deal that Harry Reid made with a McCain and other members of the emerging GOP Senate Compromise Caucus (CC). 

      http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/07/with-senate-showing-signs-of.html

      Today, he regained control, at least for a day. So yes, he won, but of course the American people lost. Now the GOP is in the totally schizophrenic position of filibustering a transportation bill in the Senate because it had a higher level of spending than the sequester levels, while in the House Boehner yesterday failed to pass his own transportation bill with the deep sequester cuts. After Boehner's latest embarrassing failure, Brian Beutler had this to say:

      "Republicans have dealt with some embarrassing moments on the House floor over the past year, but none so revealing or damning as today’s snafu, when they yanked a bill to fund the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Even the recent farm bill fiasco wasn’t as significant an indictment of the GOP’s governing potential.

It might look like a minor hiccup, or a symbolic error. But it spells doom for the party’s near-term budget strategy and underscores just how bogus the party’s broader agenda really is and has been for the last four years. 

     http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/07/gops_long-predicted_comeuppance_has_arrived.php

     Basically the GOP can't even bring itself to vote for its own cuts .With all this talk of the Hastert Rule, there isn't even a majority of House Republicans that can vote for the sequester cuts. Yet, today the Senate GOP filibusters a bill because it doesn't have the sequester cuts. So Republicans both voted against seqester cuts and against a bill without the sequester cuts. Talk about untenable. 

    However, if McConnell is celebrating his 'victory'-it's actually a victory over the American people in refusing to allow something as basic as a transportation bill from coming to the floor-he might want to think again. 

    A new poll by PPP suggests that Allison Grimes may be a real threat to McConnell next year. His campaign of course is trying to claim that the poll is not just off but preposterous. 

    "According to the survey -- conducted by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling on behalf of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy For America -- Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky's Democratic secretary of state who officially entered the race on Tuesday, leads the longtime senator by one point, with 45 percent to McConnell's 44 percent. While her lead is within the margin of error, the poll also underscored some broader issues that McConnell is likely to face as he campaigns for a sixth term."

     "At 51 percent, a majority of Kentuckians say they disapprove of McConnell's job performance, while 40 percent approve and 9 percent are undecided. Those numbers are an improvement over an April PPP poll that showed him to be one of the least popular senators in the country, with a 36 percent job approval rating. His lagging numbers reinforce a longstanding problem that McConnell has had wrangling support for his reelection bid."

      "George Soros and the Obama Allies are up to their same old tricks," said McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton. "They have concocted another fictitious poll that has no basis in reality, held it for ten days, and released it at the perfect time in the news cycle to help their upstart liberal candidate. This poll has zero credibility and should be ignored out of hand."

       http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/kentucky-senate-poll-alison-lundergan-grimes-mitch-mcconnell-_n_3688273.html

       Sure, when in doubt, blame George Soros. However, PPP has shown itself to be a fairly reliable poll. Zero credibility is pretty strong words as well-was McConnell using that phrase to describe Gallup's polls in late October that showed Romney with a 7 point lead? What has little credibility are Republicans who take potshots at polls. Nate Silver, by the way, thinks McConnell is the favorite but not guaranteed. 

       http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/re-election-is-likely-for-mcconnell-but-not-guaranteed/?_r=0

       A Republican party poll has McConnell with a 8 point lead. 

       "Previous polls by the firm, taken in April and May, before Lundergan Grimes officially kicked off her campaign, similarly suggested that the Democrat would be a viable threat to McConnell. A survey taken by Republican firm Wenzel Strategies last month had McConnell in better shape, leading Grimes 48 percent to 40 percent."

        McConnell also has a Tea Party primary opponent. 

       "Potentially compounding matters for McConnell is the recent decision by Kentucky tea party activist and businessman Matt Bevin to challenge the five-term senator for the Republican nomination. Bevin was not included in the latest survey, though the Wenzel Strategies poll released in July suggested that McConnell had a strong lead over his challenger."

        Many believe that part of McConnell's zeal to get today's bill filibustered was to please the Tea Party and assure them that they don't have to vote for Bevin as he's a Tea Partier himself. 

        "Why did Mitch McConnell work so hard to defeat the Senate transportation bill (against Susan Collins, a major proponent) by filibuster today? This is suggestive:

Asked if McConnell’s upcoming primary fight with a tea party challenger might have something to do with the pressure, Collins told POLITICO: “I can’t speculate on why. All I can tell you is he has never worked harder against a member of his own party than he did against me today.”

       http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/08/01/happy-hour-roundup-159/

       As the Kentucky writer Joe Sonka said, McConnell gave the sequester a bear hug today. It was an impressive victory. Too bad the American people were the losers.